Rubywings

Chapter I - The Journey

Come with me for an hour, out of the hard, stony by-ways and hot, dusty thoroughfares of this work-a-day city.
Mount behind me on the broad wings of this carrier-bird, which most men have, yet which no mortal hath ever seen! Sit close and fear not, for our pillion is soft and easy, the steed safe. Now mount and away!

“Where silvery songs of bird and bee, Of leaf and lake and stream, Round us hum and flit and flee While we linger silently In our noon-tide dream.”

Nothing but ice! Walls of it, peaks, spires, towers, grottoes, floors. Ice everywhere! It is of all manner of delicate hues—pale green and blue; and where the edges catch the sun it shines even brighter than the glitter of a thousand clustering diamonds. This is Silverhaze, the border of Fairyland. The King of Silverhaze stood at the ice-bound portal of his kingdom, when he observed the approach of a very old man. The gait of the mortal wayfarer was slow and feeble, and he often paused to rest ere he reached the gates where stood the monarch.
“Who lives here, Spirit?” he asked of the Frost King.
“I,” responded the tall, bearded form, in a sweet voice which sounded like a song heard a long way off.
“Where is Fairyland, and how am I to get there?” inquired the old gentleman in a faint tone.
“You are standing on the boundary line of the region you seek,” answered the King; “this is the wall encircling the land of the Australian Elves, O mortal!”
“What a thick rampart of ice!” exclaimed the old man, curiously inspecting the great white barrier.
“True,” answered the Frost King. “This wall is made from the dew and rain of Earth that are not delicate enough to moisten the tender grass of Elfland. I catch the mists as they wreathe themselves upward, and divide them; that which has touched and been tainted with the under world I build up into these icy walls; that which is pure as the morning cloud floats on into the country where you are going.”
“Thank you; may I wander onward?”
“Ay! Few come here to break my repose. I live here alone. Continue your journey onwards towards Moonrise, and you will see all you want.”
“Shall I see everything, O King Frost?”
“Nay, that will depend on yourself. If you can fling away from you every thought that is not fit for the pure mind of an innocent child, then shall you behold wonders.”
“Alas! great King, I am afraid I cannot do that. Who can, who can? In my youth I never heard of this glorious Fairyland. Childhood, young manhood, mature age, were all spent by me in getting and hoarding money; and now the time is drawing near when I must depart; but ere I go I want to view the silver mosses and green slopes of these regions.”
The old man bent low before the Ice Monarch, whose cold blue eyes changed to flashing steel.
“I can help you,” he answered. “Come here, and let me touch your forehead. If you wish it in your heart, I will draw from you your memories and thoughts, and send you a child into Fairyland. Your past will lie here for you in my ice cave, a burden or a blessing, for you to resume as you go out.”
“How, a burden or a blessing?” asked the mortal.
“That again will depend on yourself; according to what you see in your travels will your past seem to you on your return.”
“But you said I should see all.”
“You will have the power of seeing all, yet you will only see that which you care to look upon.” As the Frost King spoke, he advanced and touched the mortal’s brow with his finger. While he did so there glided beneath the old man’s feet a silver cloud-car, which instantly enveloped him and carried him away from the ice-clad border with the swiftness of a sea-gull. Amazement grew upon him as he felt himself borne away and no visible thing in view. Then remembering what the Spirit had said, he exclaimed aloud, “Can I not see what is about me?”
The words were hardly uttered when he perceived that he was the occupant of a gorgeous conveyance drawn by a team of butterflies, with a lovely child seated therein driving them. Wonderful indeed the delicate tints and shades which the moonbeams had woven in her robes. Still more wondrous the blended purity and beauty of her face. Exquisitely, deliciously soft and musical the voice that addressed him in accents like the soft south wind, wooing the trees at summer’s eventide.
“Welcome, Sir Mortal. Welcome to Elfland.”
“Dear child, art thou a fairy?” he cried in surprise.
“Yes! My name is Rubywings,” she answered, with a beaming smile.
“Rubywings,” he repeated. “It is a delightful name, my child; but why do they call thee Rubywings?”
“Because I am Queen of the Butterflies,” she replied; “and because I am also the messenger of Peace and Charity to the good of the Earth. Invisible to all else of mortal birth am I. Peace! Let us onward.”
Brilliantly flashed the wings of the butterflies as they wafted the cloud-car, light and joyous as the golden orioles that flew before them. Here they fluttered among curious rocks of veined and marbled stone, here and there soft mosses, which grew in little clumps, some in scales, like trays on which stood silver cups for the fays to drink out of. Then ferns peeped out with their long tresses that blew backwards and forwards in the wind. A trickle of water began to flow from a deep cranny, and tall plants blossomed along its course. Suddenly they came upon a wide, beautiful plain, robed with such lovely, silk-like grass, only to be found in these regions. Here tall palms tossed their feathery heads, while creepers, bearing flowers, streaked with gold and brown, climbed about their trunks.
Still onward, with but a passing glimpse at the emerald carpet beneath, until they reached a fine lagoon, in the midst of which an island appeared to view, so fair and beautiful that the rest of the landscape turned bleak and barren by comparison. Over this wondrous place Rubywings guided the cloud-car. Landing where a mossy bank sloped gently to the water, the fairy led her companion into such a charming garden that a burst of rapture broke from his lips at sight of it. The most refined imagination of mortal man never conceived such a world of rare beauty. No seasons came and went here, the flowers bloomed eternally. Like a jewelled crown encircling the brows of a queen, so a vast ring of pale blossoms surrounded this bower of loveliness—primrose, with her beseeching face, shy snowdrop, loving violet, with her whisper of summer, glad hyacinth, ringing a peal of bells, whose faint tinkle came upon the mortal’s ears, like subdued melody.
Rubywings pointed out a soft couch of ferns, bordered with lilies, and said,—
“Rest thee here awhile, O mortal. Sleep, dream, bewilder thyself. When thou wakest, thine eyes shall open upon the ministering spirits of Nature, which I go to bring around thee.

“‘Bi baby bunting, I am going hunting For the shadows as they fly, For the winds to waft them by; Bi baby bunting!’”

Ere her childish song had ended Rubywings vanished, and the mortal fell asleep.

Chapter II - Shadows

The old mortal, whom the fays had christened Ready Money, slept soundly in that island garden into which he had been guided by Rubywings. And as he slumbered, behold the Fairy Queen approached with a golden wand in her hand. She stood over him and gently waved the wand to and fro, when lo! the flowers around and about instantly assumed the shape of frolicsome sprites who formed themselves into a vast ring about him. Again Rubywings lifted her enchanted staff, and the trees receded backwards in the distance as so many drifting clouds athwart the horizon. And waving her wand for the third time, a sudden darkness shrouded the island save where the man reposed.
Round that clear, circular space, bordered by the crowded ranks of the elves, there shone a brilliant, steady, silvery light, brighter than the sun and softer than a moonbeam.
Rubywings stooped and whispered in the sleeper’s ear. And as she did so, the magic ring widened and widened out, until at length it appeared to encompass the whole landscape. The beautiful light increased simultaneously with the wonderful expansion of the garden, thereby adding a tenfold beauty to every object upon which it rested.
“Behold, mortal, this is the valley of the shadows. First lift thine eyes,” cried the fairy.
Ready Money obeyed, and saw much clearer than with his waking sight. Into the shimmering ring there glided the Monarch of the Shadows. He was not at all black or gloomy. Not in the least—his manners were soft and engaging, and his robe was decorated with all kinds of delicate tints, brown and silver-grey, and violet shaded with faint blue and azure. All the fays bowed down reverently before him, because they knew he was the greatest Shadow in the land. Painters loved him and made charming pictures of him, and poets sang of him and wrote songs in his praise, and yet neither painter nor poet could tell how great, how magnificent and glorious he was.
Troop by troop, rank and column, the Shadows came out of the ravines, valleys and dells, and from the clefts in the hill sides, and from amongst the rocks, and approached the King in due order and gave an account of their several missions.
Some told how they had spent their time in sick rooms, where people lay tossing in pain, and how they had rested the eyes of many a weary sufferer, and shielded them from the glaring light, and how sometimes they had gathered thickly round them and lulled them into health-giving sleep. Others spoke of travellers far from home, who, longing to see their wives and children or friends once more, had been comforted by the Shadows, who took upon themselves the dear home figures and the scenes of home.
The mortal listened eagerly to every word uttered by these ministers of Nature. Hitherto he had believed that Beam and Shadow alike had no life, any more than the particles of dust beneath his feet, and were just as useless. What sick couch had he visited? What heart comforted? What good accomplished for the benefit of his kindred? Why, the very Shadows, dim and soulless as they were, had done more good than he had done, and Ready Money trembled as the thought came home to him. One grand fellow bent his tall form before the Shadow King and said that when the summer sun waxed hot and fierce over the Australian Continent he cast himself across the fiery pathway of the burning rays, thereby refreshing many a broiling citizen, and making cool and restful shade beneath tree and hill, and giving beauty to field and stream, by throwing lovely, translucent shadows over them, and so bringing out to full perfection the form and colour of all created things.
Then there advanced Shadows of a gloomier, darker hue. Drooping, careworn, and sorrow-laden, they had come from the houses of the very poor, from courts of justice, from prison cells where criminals sat in silence and despair. Many had come from homes where there was no love of parents; where wives and husbands were at strife; where fierce words, and cruel blows, and hard usage were the rule of daily death in life. Others had just left places of business, where men, who ought to know better, toiled year after year to increase their wealth, striving after gold, lying and cheating for it, holding it tightly when they had it, and shuddering as the time drew near when they must go hence and leave it all to others.
If these Shadows, fresh from counting-houses and cobweb-covered chambers, wherein sat men faded and wan, as the colourless walls around them, if they had been the Shadow only of this listening mortal, they could hardly have presented a more realistic picture of his life in the past than they did in their report of others.
Lying there powerless, there came upon him a strong desire to get back amongst his fellow-men if it were only for one short month—nay, but only the length of a brief day; for in it what good might be done and what atonement made! Alas! for our resolution. Ready Money was fast held beneath the influence of the wand of Rubywings, and therefore could not budge.
When the grim Shadows rested, there came an altogether merrier group upon the scene. These related how they had given their attention to schoolrooms, alarming idle boys and girls by bringing the Shadow of their teachers upon them just in the middle of a game of romps. Others again had had rare fun with naughty little folks who were going to help themselves to sugar and jam, by looking over their shoulders and making believe that some one was coming.
Next the house Shadows took their turn, and showed how they engaged themselves, by making pleasant figures on the floor and walls, dancing in the firelight, and playing bo-peep in the curtains on winter evenings. When all the reports were finished, the King called to the Wind to dismiss the Shadows.
Then the Wind came, and the Shadows, ere they took their departure, amused themselves as they liked best. In the most surprising manner some played leap-frog, hide-and-seek, and blind-man’s-buff. Others raced along the sward and up the side of the hills, like so many will-o’-the-wisps; many changing into all kinds of strange and fantastic shapes, until the silver light dimmed and died out, and the beautiful garden resumed its grandeur as before.
And a change came o’er the slumbering mortal. Slowly he opened his eyes, but the fairy with her enchanting wand was not there, nor the flowers and trees. Nothing, save the high boundary wall of ice and the white-bearded Frost King standing near.
“Resume thy earth-woven memories, O mortal!” he said in a grave, solemn tone. “Stand upright that I may touch thee. So! Go thy way for a brief season. In thy daily wanderings here and there thy former friends shall not recognise thee! From henceforth, Greed, Selfishness, Envy, and all of that nature that were dear to thee, shall become thy bitter foes. Remember what the Shadows said. Farewell!”
Down, earthward, with tottering and uncertain step went the mortal; downward, along the broad, sunny pathway, where innumerable birds sang, and trees waved, and where the low, hoarse murmur of bread-winning millions ascended to the Creator.